Mr. Magazine

On a recent trip to Amsterdam I picked up the latest issue of COLORS magazine, the United Colors of Benetton magazine. Issue number 73 of the magazine that I cherished every issue of its first few years of existence. It was the example I gave in class for innovation, content, design, you name it. And, as is with a lot of great creative magazines, the magazine fell on hard times and was reduced to yet another printed publication. Well, starting with issue 72, innovation is back, and is back with a vengeance. The last two issues remind me so much of the early issue of COLORS the magazine that set a new standard of innovation in print. Issue 72 was dedicated to a world with color. The theme of the issue was Without Colors. A Braille cover on a white background adorned the front of the magazine with another cover on the back in black and white. A CD with audio readings of the entire magazine was enclosed with the magazine.
Issue 73 on the other hand was dedicated to Money. Back are the double covers, different size magazines, great use of multiple photography and of course, excellent use of design.
If you have not seen COLORS in some time, or if you have given up on the magazine, like I did, I invite you to take a look at some of the sample pages from issue 73 (below) and the covers of issues 72 and 73 (above). Trust me, you will not regret picking it up again.

New Statesman magazine bills itself “Britain’s award-winning current affairs weekly,” and keeping with current affairs this week’s issue celebrates Christmas and the New Year in a very special way. The magazine offers “100 pages of the finest writing…” inside this end-of-the-year issue. Included in the issue is more than one defense of the use of the terms Merry Christmas and Happy Christmas rather than the so-called politically correct Happy Holidays. What caught my attention was the essay by Richard Dawkins, the Oxford University professor and self professed atheist and author of The God Delusion book. He writes,

“For better or worse, ours is historically a Christian culture, and children who grow up ignorant of biblical literature are diminished, unable to take literary allusions, actually impoverished. I am no lover of Christianity, and I loathe the annual orgy of waste and reckless reciprocal spending, but I must say I’d rather wish you ‘Happy Christmas’ than ‘Happy Holiday Season.”

New Statesman magazine is filled with Christmas essays, fiction, quizzes and awards. Very well done and best usage of the word Christmas that I have seen in a long long time…

And for those of us who celebrate the birth of Jesus, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

During my trip to Germany I picked up the 10th anniversary issue of the German edition of GQ. It came in two sizes: the standard size and a handy “pocket size” edition to fit easier in your briefcase. I was amazed to the see the difference in price: the standard size four euros, the mini only one euro. A difference of three euros for the same stuff. However, unlike the original pocket size magazine Glamour (the UK edition) the mini GQ is in fact a reduction of the original magazine rather than a specific design for that size… (so have your magnifiers ready). The next day I traveled to France and picked up a copy of Cosmopolitan. The same story there. One standard size and one mini. However, the French were not willing to give the store away just because it was a mini…only 20 cents discount for the mini. The standard Cosmopolitan was two euros and the mini was 1.80. In fact I saw more maxi and mini magazines in France than any other country that I have visited. The mini editions vary in adjectives from travel size, to handy size, to handbag size all the way to pocket size. Thank you UK Glamour for introducing a new “buzz” size to the magazine market place…

What do you do when your cover story addresses a hot topic about a major ethnic/religious issue… Go for the shock impact. Time Out London did exactly that with their cover story on the future of Islam in London. They opted to have a typographical cover with Arabic type instead of English. Big type, big words and only those who can read or speak Arabic can read it. The rest of the audience had to read the little translation at the bottom of the cover. It has been ages since I have seen a cover that really stops you in your tracks…this one did. Congratulations to Time Out London for a great cover idea. A daring cover treatment for these daring and trying times.

Hearst and Condé Nast seem to have decided to import their “handy travel size” women’s magazines to the United States. It looks like the newsstands have been flooded with copies of the June 2007 of the British Cosmopolitan and Glamour magazines. The first offers “All the pages of Cosmo in a handy travel size,” and the second offers “Britain’s no. 1 women’s magazine” in the same handy travel size. Needless to say that it was Glamour that “glamorized” this “pocket size” for women’s magazines and is now being imitated all over the world (North America, as usual, is always an exception). Both magazines are offered at a very discounted price (a bargain compared to the rest of the British titles on the marketplace). Glamour with its hefty 388 pages sells for a mere $4.99. Cosmo with its 276 daring pages including an “exclusive sealed section” sells for a mere $5.95. It should be noted that the Glamour price seems in tune with its UK price of 2.20 British pounds while Cosmo’s price in the UK is 3.30 British pounds, thus some discounting is taking place here. The exchange rate of the British pound to that of the American dollar is almost two dollars. So you may ask, aren’t the American titles enough? Well, the simple answer seems to be no. I remember when it used to be that when a British title was first published in the States (Marie Claire {the UK’s and not the French}, Maxim, etc.) the importing of their British counterparts ceased or dwindled a lot. Times are changing and the world is indeed getting flat. Let us hope that the words of one newsstand’s seller do not become prophetic. He told me when he saw the two UK titles arriving in his store, “they look more appealing and revealing than their American counter parts.” Will that translate to more selling? Time will tell. Stay tuned.